Cultural Blind Spots: Company

Cultural Blind Spots: Corporate Culture

A company’s culture is their foundation. It is the rules, spoken and unspoken, that people follow every day as they work to make the company goals come to fruition. Company culture is simply ‘the way we do things around here’. Yet as important as culture is, companies rarely take the time to define and analyze their culture. They may create vision and mission statements, or create operating principles, but as important as those things are, they do not define the culture rather they are inputs into it. So one can see how cultural blind spots are a possibility. No definitions, no cultural roadmap and yet we expect everyone, tenured employees and new ones to work within it.

Amazingly enough, companies work quite well without writing their culture down in any way. Most people are smart enough to pick up on how best to operate when they join a culture. They may have some missteps along the way, but it isn’t usually a huge issue. The issues usually come more at higher levels where the impact of actions are greater, and at what I’ll call the ‘systemic’ level, where decisions are made at one level and affect everyone else in the company.

Consider this scenario. A large company loses a top executive. Instead of promoting from within, the senior leaders decide they will bring someone in from the outside with a different approach and new ideas. They quickly find someone they consider ‘perfect’. As the person comes on board and immediately tries to do what they were hired to do – bring their different approach and new ideas – they recommend implementing some changes to processes. He or she outlines the plan, gains agreement from their staff and expects the plan to be followed. It isn’t. That could be due to a cultural blind spot.

Here’s another scenario. A small company is sold by the original owner who steps down from the chief executive spot and day to day activities and is replaced. He retains a small share in the business. The new President tries and tries to help the company make the necessary changes so they can grow their business, yet it is like swimming upstream. That could be due to a cultural blind spot.

What Can I Do?

You may be asking yourself, ‘what can I do short of defining my company’s culture in writing’? Actually plenty. I am not recommending you define your culture in writing. It may be useful but I don’t think it is a realistic solution. However, there are some very specific questions you can ask yourself and your teams as you move through making changes to your business. I call this having a Cultural Conversation™. This Cultural Conversation™ can help you define your culture as it relates to what you want to do. First write down the change or business initiative you are pursuing. Then start the conversation with these four questions: 1) Does the planned change fit in with the current culture or challenge it? In what way? ; 2) What about our culture may affect or impact our planned change(s)?; 3) What is the actual impact of this change on every level (or individual in a small company) affected? And 4) Taking into consideration all the information from the first three questions, what is my plan to move forward?

Let’s take a look at using these questions in our scenarios from above.

Large Company

Let’s go back to the large company scenario. There were many opportunities for cultural blind spots in this situation. The first opportunity was when the senior leaders decided to look outside the company for this position’s replacement. The Cultural Conversation™ could have shown them that the job being filled has ALWAYS been sourced internally. By going to the outside the executives making the decision would have been breaking an unwritten rule - ‘always fill that position internally’. That may have stopped them from going outside the company and caused them to rethink their strategy. Or maybe not. The Cultural Conversation™ isn’t meant to stop actions, simply allow individuals to pursue actions with their eyes open – and a plan in place. If the senior leaders still wanted to go to the outside to fill this position they could have created a communication plan that would have explained in different ways why going to the outside was necessary and what it hoped to accomplish. This would have helped individuals in the company understand the decision and how it fit in with the overall plans for the company. Breaking the ‘internal only’ rule may still hurt, but showing employees that you considered the rule and felt it necessary to break it for the good of the company will go a long way in acceptance of the decision.

Still considering the large company scenario. Even if the senior leaders had that conversation and the communication was done about why the person was being hired from the outside, and even if it reached everyone, the new person would still need to find their place. When someone is hired to make change, especially at a top level, you know that is what they will do. It will be imperative for them to learn as much about the culture into which they are introducing the change. By learning about the culture they can relate the parts of their changes to what fits, and focus their efforts on explaining the parts that may be outside of the current cultural norms. They can also tailor their changes to not be ‘counter culture’ so they have a chance to succeed. Gaining buy in is always a good business tool to employ and in the case of this large company, the buy in would need to go deeper than just one level. As the new top executive formulated their plans, having the Cultural Conversation™ would have not only helped them learn valuable information about the culture, it also would have positioned them and their proposed changes in a different, more positive light.

One last thought about this scenario. Large companies are unique in that oftentimes company culture seems to take on a life of its own. It really doesn’t, but there are so many people ‘culturing’ every day that it may seem that way. My advice is to NEVER underestimate the power of people as they ‘culture’ in a large corporation. I use culture as a verb because individuals perpetuate the culture in companies, in every action they take or don’t take, every minute of every work day. In order to change the culture, or change part of the culture – like the way an order is processed or the way performance is measured, the actions of people and the thoughts and ideas driving those actions needs to change.

Small Company

Let’s consider the small, growing company sold by the original owner who stepped down from his top position and out of the day to day operations. There could be a lot of reasons why the new President was having difficulty, but one thing is clear. The culture was created by the original owner. He also probably hired each individual in every job. Small companies are oftentimes like families, somewhat dysfunctional but always loyal. All this needed to be taken into consideration by both the original owner and by the new President. Having the Cultural Conversation™ would have allowed the original owner to share his culture with the new President and give both an opportunity to make plans for the immediate future. There could have been a specific transition plan where the former owner and the new President worked together. People probably needed to see, at the very least, that the new President had the blessing of the former owner. If the original owner was going to continue having contact with his former employees then there needed to be alignment with him on the plans for the future.

Issues of culture have many layers and may often feel complex even in a small company setting. Talking about decisions in the context of cultural fit and impact on a regular basis will help this complexity melt away.

Conclusion

Corporate culture may be intimidating to some but it is crucial that you learn as much about it so you can use it strategically as you pursue your goals. Corporate Culture in big companies have many layers. There may be a parent company culture, an operating company culture, a division culture and a department culture all in play at once. It can get confusing, but cultural blind spots are relatively easy to avoid if you are willing to agree that a company’s culture is important and that it is worth understanding it and planning for its impact. Having the Cultural Conversation™ is a simple way of defining your culture in the moment and using the information to support your success. Over time, the conversations get easier because you will be used to bringing your company’s culture to light.

Cultural Conversation™

Does the planned change fit in with the current culture or challenge it? In what way?
What about our culture may affect or impact our planned change(s)?
What is the actual impact of this change on every level (or individual in a small company) affected?
Taking into consideration all the information from the first three questions, what is my plan?

Interested in learning more about the Cultural Conversation™? Call Beth Banks Cohn at 732-786-8223 for more information.

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